Maybe I can now afford a Missoni bikini! Italian high end knitwear brand Missoni, will debut a line for Target this fall as a a part of the Go International Series.

Missoni for Target

will feature over 400 pieces using the iconic multi-color stripes of the knitwear brand including clothing for women, kids, and men, bedding, iPad covers, bicycles and enough dinnerware to set the table forcolazione, pranzo, and cena. The line, branded with Missoni’s trademark swirls, zigzags, and loud printed florals, will be available from September 13 to October 22 at US Target stores and online at Target.com.

“Quality has always been one of the key aspects of Missoni, along with knitwear, pattern, and color,” Margherita Missoni explains. “It’s this artisanal quality that was so important to my grandparents.”

After several trips to Milan for the Target team to trawl through the Missoni archives, and Margherita and her mother, Angela, braving a snowstorm in Minneapolis for the final fittings, they couldn’t be happier with the results.

Brand ambassador Margherita Missoni stars in both the editorial and television campaign,

paying homage to mod style in a zigzag mini dress and teased ponytail with matching luggage.

It’s been a busy time for Missoni :: The Italian fashion house just debuted their line of summer footwear for Havaianas, and collaborations with two more brands: Target and Bugaboo. The Italian company will release a collaboration of sun canopies and bassinet aprons with Bugaboo, priced from $199 to $269, at Neiman Marcusin. “Working with Bugaboo has given me a unique opportunity to create a dream stroller that I hope will be enjoyed by children and will stimulate their senses,” said designer Angela Missoni. via InStyle

Who is Anna Dello Russo? She is a self-described “passionate fashionista” and Vogue Nippon editor with a very trendy blog… With her outrageous dress sense, Anna Dello Russo – influential blogger, editor, street-style icon – is putting the fun back into dressing up!

She has her own hugely popular blog AdR where she chronicles her unique daily looks.

AdR features images wrapped in quirky yellow sunflower / banana frames in which she places her super-brilliant head on catwalk looks she likes or coveted couture.

Anna Dello Russo is a significant but definitely behind-the-scenes player in the game of international fashion for almost two decades, she began gaining a public profile in 2006, via the medium of the Sartorialist.com’s Scott Schulman. Schulman made a regular feature of Dello Russo and her extravagant style. Dello Russo (catchphrase: “I don’t want to be cool. I want to be fashion”) makes a point of faithfully recreating designer looks precisely as they are shown on the international fashion-week catwalks. She likes gold brocade-trimmed military coats with absurdly flouncy skirts and matching gold wedges; feathery Jason Wu cocktail dresses, pink cat’s-eye sunglasses and glittering explosions of Balenciaga ballgowns. As daywear. Polly Vernon

Once described by Helmut Newton as a “fashion maniac”, Anna Dello Russo is currently the Editor At Large and creative consultant for Vogue Japan. After spending 18 years at Condé Nast Italia – starting as a fashion editor at Vogue Italia - Dello Russo went on to become editor ofL’Uomo Vogue from 2000-2006 before assuming her current role for Vogue Japan. She has a bachelor’s degree in Italian Literature and Art History and attended the Domus Academy in Milan. Anna was born in Bari in Southern Italy, and now lives in Milan with her dog Cucciolina that also has it’s own Fetching Ware including designer clothes just as gorgeous as the beautiful Anna wear’s.

Anna Dello Russo Style

Based in Milan, Dello Russo has two apartments – one for herself and another for her clothes. “I collect a clothes,” she told Glamour. “I’m like a buyer… at the start of every season, I have a wish-list. Who cares if I don’t get a chance to wear it all? I just love owning it.”

“My mother used to say I looked like a Christmas tree; I would wear everything at the same time. I still do. I’m a maximalist.” And when UK Glamour asked her what she wears to the supermarket, she responded, “Supermarket? I don’t go to the supermarket! I’d rather buy clothes. Clothes are my religion.”

During fashion show season, Vogue Japan‘s editor-at-large often attracts as much – and sometimes more – attention than the clothes on the catwalks. She’s a favourite on street style blogs like The Sartorialist and Garance Doré and has legions of fashion fans across the globe.

Anna Dello Russo on how to be… How do you define good style?

Don’t be literal! Add a twist to your look. Personally, I like to make an impact in the room, but you have to decide whether to wear a dress that gets people talking or a dress that just looks good on you.

Anna does NOT travel with a cute family of monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks but is rather an advocate for light packing.

‘The suitcase must be LIGHT as a feather! It’s forbidden to pay OVERWEIGHT!‘

How does she do that? The owner of more than 4,000 pairs of shoes claims to only pack one pair,

‘Is allowed to bring only ONE high heels: Choose it well!’

Anna may only take one, uno pair of high heels in her light as a feather bag but when it comes to reading it seems paying for overweight is not only allowed but required. Anna says,

‘Take an extra luggage just for the BOOKS on paper.’

And finally, while I dream of travelling with LV luggage, I concur with Grazia Daily,

And then Anna starts saying something about ‘flirting with the mood of the country’ but to be honest, we just could not muster the courage to keep reading. What next? Leave the giant gold cherries behind? And what exactly would we be seen wearing while sipping cocktails by the pool, Anna? *shakes head in disbelief, cancels holiday*

To celebrate their 10 year anniversary, the clothing website yoox.com

printed 10 different shirts for sale, each with one of Dello Russo’s top ten outfits.

The shirts went on to sell out within the first day they were made available.

Anna loves to define herself as POP, as in “popular”, famous and accessible to anyone who loves fashion as much as she does. Her dazzling looks and her style choices have been immortalized by photographers from around the world, and from there her following of fans have invaded their blogs with pro-Anna Style messages. And it’s thanks to one of her fans that the idea came to be: a kit of T-shirts printed with the best looks worn by Anna on the occasion of runway shows, parties and social events that Anna has decided to “gift” to yoox.com for its 10th Anniversary.

Vale Margaret Olley ~ beloved Australian painter acclaimed for her still lifes and domestic interiors paintings.

In the 50′s my mother lived in a flat under Olley’s West End home. My mother had fond memories of that time and would occasionaly model for the artist. She was witty and forthright, and enjoyed the banter of conversation with my grandfather Ted when he visited.

Prolific, free-spirited and much-loved artist Margaret Olley

“I insist on having interesting people around the dinner table: painters, writers, people who are doing things. Barry Humphries is an ideal guest – a most intelligent and amusing person. I’m a little frightened of Dame Edna Everage, though, so have never invited her to my table!” The Artist’s Lunch

Her terrace house studio was the scene of lively dinner parties attended by the likes of Barry Humphries and Leo Schofield.

Margaret Olley Untitled (Still Life with Cornflowers and Grapes), oil on board

Margaret Olley Flannel Flowers, 1976

In 1965 she bought her Paddington terrace home in Sydney, a former hat factory, that was also her studio. It was a mecca for artists, bohemians and intellectuals. It became famous as a magpie’s bower of bric-a-brac and treasures – littered with flowers, fruit, vases and books (and ashtrays) that were the subject of her still lifes, scattered about in various states of completion.

Margaret Olley’s house and garden is a sublime jumble, famous by reputation. Her clothes, often worn in layers, a collection of blouses, sheeny, with light scarves, sometimes cheap sometimes expensive, speckled or striped, over-jackets of Chinese silk and quilted velvet, Van Eyck bonnets, battered straw hats, and an old cardigan for a cold body. Margaret Olley’s mind reverberates with causes; but in the end her purpose in life is to turn this world, this illusion in which we live, into art. Barry Pearce, Head Curator, Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Still Life Pomegranates, Oil on Board

“She could be grumpy, forthright and immoveable – but she had a heart of art.”

Stuart Purves, owner of Australian Galleries

Far from a Still Life, 2005 biography by Meg Stewart.

THERE’S nothing like painting what you’re familiar with,” says Margaret Olley. “You can do all sorts of things with the ordinary.” She pauses to consider the alternatives. “To go off and paint the Swiss mountains is a monumental task, best left to God!” But though Olley, 76, mostly paints still-lifes and the interiors of her own house, her world is anything but limited. She is a knowledgeable benefactor, who has given to public galleries works by Arthur Boyd, Edgar Degas and Georgio Morandi, as well as early Indian sculptures and miniatures. Sue Smith

Margaret Olley, Brisbane River 1956. Ink and watercolour on paper.

Born in Lismore on 24 June 1923, Olley began painting as a young girl at Somerville House boarding school in Brisbane, going on to study at the Brisbane Central Technical College and then at East Sydney Technical College graduating in 1945.

In the 1980s, philanthropy became a passion, partly prompted by her inheritance of the Hughes estate. In 1990 she established the Margaret Hannah Olley Art Trust, providing purchasing funds for regional galleries in particular. She also donated more than $7 million in art to the Art Gallery of NSW, including works by Picasso, Cezanne and Bonnard, and many of her own paintings.

Olley was the subject of this year’s winning Archibald Prize portrait by Ben Quilty {above} and in 1948 sat for William Dobell’s prize-winner.

Margaret Olley never married and when asked about the subject said “I had a few lucky escapes.“

She ”never liked the institution of marriage – I dislike the notion of being owned”

Nils Sveje’s design ‘Bike 2.0’ won the 2010 Seoul Cycle Design Competition. The contemporary remake combines modern technology ~ instead of a chain, the bike has a pedal-powered internal generation that is wired directly to the rear motor. Instead of shifters, it has two wireless rings on the handlebar, which make turning, gearing, and controlling the bike much easier. It features a stepless gearbox and a regenerative coaster brake. And the Intelligent Cadence Levelling Feature keeps the rider pedalling at a consistent speed and intensity (which can be adjusted via the handlebars). Bike 2.0 has the added bonus of being ecological, as seen with its intelligent energy usage mechanism, which, among other things, controls the rate at which riders charge the bike’s batteries. Its aluminium frame has built-in lighting. The bike’s technology, aesthetics, and concepts prove that Bike 2.0 is a glimpse into the future of bicycle design.

Jelly Bean Bikes ~ colour your ride

Custom made Jelly Bean Bikes :: You’re in the saddle when it comes to choosing colours for the bike’s frame, grip bars, seat, seat post and stem, chain, crankset, front and rear wheels. And to make sure your combination clicks you can test ride some bikes at their Melbourne warehouse or see what other bike enthusiasts have styled. Start with a very simple, yet sleek, single speed/fixie design and then you can click around to view different color configurations or choose one of their pre-designs. Then choose your size and free or fixed gear. Cost $500 AUD. Jelly Bean Bikes

The designer, Lagomorph has used American Black Walnut wood for making this bicycle. This wood has a unique feature of “stability and shock resistance” making it the manufacturer’s preferred choice among other comparable woods.

Karl Lagerfeld once called her his muse, Roberto Cavalli went crazy for her, and Louis Vuitton reported paid her $1m for a single appearance at a show during 2008 Paris Fashion Week. Jonathan Kelsey designed his ‘Amy’ shoe, and PPQ teamed up with her on a capsule collection.

The new Brigitte Bardot :: Karl Lagerfeld paid direct homage to her at the 2007 London Chanel show. Models strutted down the runway wearing impressively vertiginous up-dos and heavily kohl-rimmed eyes. When asked about his muse, the designer announced that Winehouse is ”the new Brigitte Bardot”: gap-toothed, boundary breaking and most importantly beehived. The Sun newspaper

She is a beautiful, gifted artist.

And I very much like her hairdo. I took it as an inspiration.

Because, in fact, it was also Brigitte Bardot’s hairdo in the late Fifties and Sixties.

And now Amy has made it her own style.

Karl Lagerfeld

The Beehive which Amy apparently patented and spread to the masses gets a perfect pouf in these new ads for the house that Coco built. The other inspiration is purely Tudors, as if King Henry numbero ocho came up from hell to whisper sweet nothings into Karly’s ear.

Tears Dry On Their Own

Amy Jade Winehouse (born 14 September 1983 in London) is an English singer-songwriter, known for her eclectic mix of various musical genres including soul, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues.

Her musical formation went through listening to such jazz divas as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan; she was later influenced by contemporary metropolitan popular music as well. She represents a union of these aesthetics and of her writing (she composes her music herself): a happy compromise and fusion of ’40s jazz, ’60s soul and hard texts inspired by daily life.

Winehouse’s 2003 debut album Frank was a commercial and critical success. Her 2006 follow-up album Back To Black led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the record for one of the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made Winehouse the first singer from the United Kingdom to win five Grammys. She has won the Ivor Novello Award three times, one in 2004 for Best Contemporary Song (musically and lyrically) for “Stronger Than Me”, one in 2007 for Best Contemporary Song for “Rehab”, and one in 2008 for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for “Love Is A Losing Game”. {Wikipedia}

Originally I wrote about Lachlan as part of my Hollister Hovey posting, however when I discovered Hollister’s story on buying Lachlan in 2005 on myspace I decided it was worthy of it’s own posting! Enjoy this tale of taxidermy love.

Part 1 :: Finding Lachlan

Lachlan was purchased on ebay, and like all good love affairs the beginning was full of drama and uncertainty as captured here by Hollister in her 2005 blog posting.

11:00 Check bank account. Will have to sacrifice fancy meals/drinks or live off little sister if I win merino sheep. Consider it worth the struggle.

11:05 Check other bid status and realize that will have to live off little sister regardless if I win smaller items already bid upon.

11:15 Little sister says the sheep looks creepy, but likes the goat.

11:33 Am eaten alive with love of the sheep and still considering.

UPDATE: purchased merino sheep.

Suffered without money for roughly 10 days.

Sheep arrives at office in box large enough to hold diswasher (human or mechanical). I realize box will not fit into cab, so must unwrap new pet at work.

Patience not being a virtue I know, I rip in around 3 p.m. Box filled solidly with packing peanuts and shreaded paper (and sheep). Must dig deep to even see sheep’s nose. Co-workers look into box and scream and make Godfather references. Two somewhat supportive co-workers help lift animal out of box, leaving office in post-ticker tape parade-style mess. What ticker tape isn’t on floor is tangled into the wool of the head. Animal head, initially thought to be about the size of a small deer/german shepherd, turns out to be of T-Rex proportions.

Co-workers express deep shock, dismay and lack of understanding for passion over sheep’s head and taxidermy in general.

Part 2 :: A Sad, Sad Day ~ Lachlan died today.

Porter and I have been struggling with a moth invasion for six months. Bags and bags of wool clothes have hit the trash. The salvaged wool pieces hang in ugly plastic bags in our closets. It’s been terrible. And gross. But we thought it over. Then, last weekend, we took Lachlan, the merino sheep, off his wall. How we didn’t think that moths that munch on spun, died wool might enjoy unspun, natural wool just as much is beyond me. Frankly, they love it. They cannot get enough. They devoured the entire top of his head. They ruined him.

We’d had a couple deer (Denver and Michael Gregory) – but Lachlan was the majestic creature that sparked our taxidermy spree. Without Lachlan, there probably wouldn’t be Daedalus or Icarus (the swans) or Mandela (the nyala) or even Cormack (the highland bull). Would the apartment have ever made it into The New York Times or ELLE Decoration? I don’t think so. It was all Lachlan.

We tried to salvage him from the devastation, but it was beyond repair (and we both were on the cusp of asphyxiation by moth ball). So, this morning, I grabbed him by his plastic-wrapped horns and put him in the dumpster. Thank goodness he was covered and I didn’t have to look him in the glass eye. We’ll have remember him through the photos.

Hollister and Porter Hovey have been on my radar for ages, and it has been very remiss of me to not share them with you sooner!

They are bloggers and collectors who share my love of a decadent antiquarian aesthetic of taxidermy, anatomical charts, entomology, fencing masks, natural history prints, pith helmets, and apothecary jars ~ objects that are

“Accoutrements of the turn-of-the-19th-century leisure class”… “the tiny domed vignettes the Victorians were so fond of (artful arrangements of taxidermied squirrels, for example, in twiggy settings)”…and “Taxidermy, osteological antiques like monkey skeletons and other Victoriana”

The Hoveys are sisters from Kansas City.

They are not big-game hunters from the 1930′s. They are not taxidermists.

Hollister works in PR and Porter for a management consulting firm.

Featured in the New York Times and Elle Decoration UK, Hollister Hovey’s eponymous and very cool blog captures the trend that has been termed ‘New Vintage’ living.

This is not the type of decorating style that you can just go out and buy. It is a style of passion. A lifestyle of visual collage. “It’s a stitched-together, bricolage world, an alternative world,” writes Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Collecting old things is a way of collecting the aura of a passed world or perhaps of collecting the passing of time itself.

But these are not just any sort of objects. These are intensely fascinating things. Faded patinas, gilding, whimsical details, furs and feathers, brass knobs, skeletons, aged maps. Each is inherently, potently unique, which – on its own – marks these things off from the endless stream of sameness characterising modern wares. Each object composing the eerie Victoriana aesthetic of Ryan Matthew’s apartment is irreplaceable and irreplaceably strange, particularly his mummified hunting dog.

This is more than a “New Vintage.” This is a statement of idiosyncratic individuality. Just as no two pieces of taxidermy will ever be the same (there are no copies in nature), no two apothecary bottles or Victorian pith helmets or vintage mirror will ever be equally the same. These lifelong collections express a love of texture and detail and the pleasures of beautifully, outlandishly, and outmodedly uniquely vibrant things.

Hollister muses about her life and her love for Ernest Hemingway, fashion, taxidermy, and traveling on the blog. The Novey sisters abode featured here showcases this antique spirit which is stuffed full of beautiful vintage finds.

Stepping into the loft is like walking into an exquisitely crafted exhibit of curiosities collected over a lifetime, from someone who has lived a fascinating life. Ms. Hovey has a wonderfully seasoned style that is a unique mix of colonial-end-of-the-empire textures and colors (zebra rug, hunting trophies), apothecary curiosities, ornate & eclectic vintage mixed harmoniously with simple, substantial modern pieces. And a bit of the gothic in there, but maybe that is in the eye of the beholder. Oh I just had a great time looking…finding little vignettes everywhere. Decor adore!Rose Callahan

Hollister Hovey is a really cool blog. It chronicles the discoveries of Hollister including ‘The Best New York Stores Selling Old-Looking Style’ and her tumblr site showcases her Objects Of Affection (A Graphic List Of Acquisitions And Desires).